Netjerykhet (later dynasties called him Zoser or Djoser) was
the second king of the 3rd Dynasty, and his pyramid, the Step
Pyramid of Saqqara, was built of stone blocks rather than mud
bricks. His architect was Imhotep, a character who has gone
down in history as a great innovator and physician. In later periods,
he was worshiped as a deity, with the Greeks identifying
him with their god of healing, Aesclepius.

A statue of Zoser for whom
the Step Pyramid was built.

Just why there should have been this new development of using stone instead of
mud brick is still debated by scholars. The stone blocks were not very large as compared
with the later pyramid of Khufu, and they were not exactly squared, but at least
they were stone. Instead of one low brick building surmounting the burial place, there
was a huge mass of stone.

The Step Pyramid of Saqqara was first identified as a mastaba, an oblong building
faced with lime plaster, below which there was a burial shaft and tomb chamber. There
was also a complex series of passages and chambers that appeared to have no purpose.
The total length of these tunnels and rooms has been estimated at 3.5 miles (5.7 km).
Some scholars have suggested that it replicated in part the king’s royal palace at Memphis,
but as we do not know what his palace looked like, this remains speculation.

No bodies were found in any of these chambers, though the hip bone of an 18-year-old woman was discovered in one of the rooms. There was also an extraordinary
collection of 40,000 stone plates and cups made of alabaster and other semi-precious
stones found in one of the galleries.

The form of the ziggurats of Mesopotamia may have been copied by the builders of the Step Pyramid of
Saqqara. This ziggurat at Ur where Abraham lived originally consisted of three stages topped by a temple.
Only the lowest stage remains.

Whether this mastaba was originally meant to be the end of the structure is not
clear. Some say that Imhotep added the later stepped stages as an afterthought, while
some think that the final structure was planned that way from the beginning. Whatever
the case, four stages were built above the original mastaba and then another two
stages were built above that, making six stages or steps all together.

Zoser would have lived around the time of Terah, the father of Abraham of the
Bible. According to the Bible, Abraham lived in the ancient city of Ur in Sumer, which
was in present-day Iraq. At this site are the remains of a great ziggurat (or stepped
pyramid type building). The eminent archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, who
carried out major excavations at the site, later wrote that
the diggings had revealed that at the same time as the construction
of the great pyramids of Egypt, the Sumerian
architects were acquainted with the column, the arch, the
vault, and the dome, that is, all the basic forms of architecture.
Referring to the ziggurat he goes on to say:

But the surprising thing is that there is not a
single straight line in the structure. Each wall,
from base to top and horizontally from corner to
corner, is a convex curve, a curve so slight as not
to be apparent but giving to the eye of the observer
an illusion of strength where a straight line
might have seemed to sag under the weight of the
superstructure. The architect thus emplyed the
principle of entasis, which was to be rediscovered
by the builders of the Parthenon at Athens.1

Inside this stone chamber on the north side of the Step Pyramid was a
statue of Zoser peering out through two holes to the outside world.

(The Parthenon was built more than 1,500 years later.)

These and similar findings in Sumer show that the
inhabitants of Ur had advanced knowledge of architecture,
mathematics, and astronomy. This has led to another
theory that the concept of a step pyramid was borrowed
from Mesopotamia where there were many temple ziggurats
that were used for purposes of worship. The ancient
Sumerians and Babylonians had the idea that God was
on high, and that the higher you went to worship Him
the nearer you got to God. The Babylonians built these
stepped ziggurats, on top of which there was a shrine to
their god and steps leading to the top for worshipers to
ascend. It is unlikely that Imhotep had ever visited Mesopotamia,
but many travelers came from there who could
have described these ziggurats, and Imhotep may have
decided to adapt the idea to a burial place, but instead
of worshipers climbing to the top for worship, a burial
chamber was made beneath it for the last resting place of
the king.

Circumstantial evidence that supports the idea of
communication between Egypt and Mesopotamia is to be
found in the almost identical burial customs of both areas.
Sir Leonard Woolley excavated at Ur of the Chaldees
in Sumer from 1922 to 1934 and unearthed the famed
death pits of Ur, where up to 80 people accompanied the
king into the afterlife.

The Step Pyramid started out as a single stage mastaba, then four
more stages were added and then another two stages. At the northeast
corner it can be seen where the final stage was added.

Woolley wrote, “The royal body was carried down the
sloping passage and laid in the chamber, sometimes, perhaps
generally, inside a wooden coffin. . . . When the door
had been blocked with stone and brick and smoothly plastered
over, the first phase of the burial ceremony was complete.
The second phase, as best illustrated by the tombs
of Shub-ad and her husband, was more dramatic. Down
into the open pit, with its mat covered floor and mat-lined
walls, empty and unfurnished, there comes a procession
of people, the members of the dead ruler’s court, soldiers,
men-servants and women, the latter in all their finery of
brightly-coloured garments and headdresses of carnelian
and lapis lazuli, silver and gold, officers with the insignia
of their rank, musicians bearing harps and lyres, and
then, driven or backed down the slope, the chariots drawn
by oxen or by asses, the drivers in the carts, the grooms
holding the heads of the draught animals, and all take up
their allotted places at the bottom of the shaft and finally
a guard of soldiers forms up at the entrance. Each man
and woman brought a little cup of clay or stone or metal,
the only equipment needed for the rite that was to follow.
There would seem to have been some kind of service
down there, at least it is certain that the musicians played
up to the last; then each of them drank from their cups a
potion which they had brought with them or found prepared
for them on the spot—in one case we found in
the middle of the pit a great copper pot into which they
could have dipped—and then lay down and composed
themselves for death.”2

This termination of life seemed to have been quite
voluntary. There was no sign of violence. It may have been
part of their employment contract to accompany their
king into the next life. In any case, it derived from a firm
conviction that life in the hereafter would continue as it
had been in this life, and that death was merely a transition
from this world to the next.

One of the royal tombs of Ur excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley.
Outside these tombs were death pits where retainers voluntarily drank
poison to accompany their king into the afterlife.

A similar belief seems to have been held in the 3rd
Dynasty of Egypt. In the vicinity of the Step Pyramid was
a vast cemetery in which attendants of the king were buried,
and their deaths apparently occurred at the time of
the king’s burial, presumably in the belief that they were
simply accompanying their king into the next life.

Other scholars also propose that the culture of Mesopotamia
had a considerable influence in Egypt. Jill Kamill
in her book Sakkara: A Guide to the Necropolis and the
Site of Memphis wrote, “Cylinder seals, and certain artistic
and architectural motifs in Egypt which have their prototype
in Mesopotamia, raise the question of the extent to
which the latter civilisation inspired the former.”3 Robert
Womack, writing in the magazine KMT, volume 5, number
2, wrote concerning an early step pyramid, “It may be
important evidence of Mesopotamian influence in early
dynastic Egypt.”4

However the idea of building pyramid tombs got
started, it has to be acknowledged as a tremendous leap
forward in ingenuity and engineering skill. The Zoser or
Step Pyramid of Saqqara was 410 x 354 feet (125 x 108
m) at its base and rose to a height of 203 feet (62 m). The
entrance was on the north side, though this is off limits
to tourists today because there is no artificial lighting beneath
the pyramid and there is danger of collapse. Near
this entrance is a small stone shrine in which was a statue
of Zoser peeping out through two small holes. Actually,
the original statue has been installed in the Cairo Museum
and a replica today stands in the shrine.

Woolley found some of the cups from which they drank.

The entire structure was originally faced with pure
white limestone that came from the Tura Quarry near
modern Cairo. The whole building must have presented a
dazzling appearance. The outer casing has long since disappeared,
taken by local builders for their construction
work, and many of the stones have also been removed.
Some of these facing stones have been replaced by modern
stones to give tourists an idea of what the original structure
looked like.

It is a tragedy that so many of Egypt’s ancient buildings
have been denuded of stone, especially as there may
have been some informative inscriptions on some of the
stones that have been stolen, but in some cases this has
its compensation. Because the outer stones have been removed
from the Step Pyramid, archaeologists have been
able to study the developmental stages in the construction
of the pyramid.

A 34.4 feet (10.5 m) high limestone wall with a total
length of over a mile (1,645 m) surrounds the pyramid,
and at the southeast corner of the compound there is a
funerary temple with fluted alabaster columns. It was customary
for burial sites to have a temple where rites and
offerings for the welfare of the departed king could be offered.
It is hard for Western minds to understand the logic
of this concept. It was apparent to those who made the
offerings that the food was not eaten by the king’s ka. This
did not bother them because to their thinking it was not
the food itself that was consumed but the ka of the food.
What is hard to understand though is why they could not
reason that this would not go on forever.

Zoser’s pyramid was not the only step pyramid built,
but it was the outstanding structure which undoubtedly
gave birth to the idea which was perfected in later
pyramids.

Unwrapping the Pharaohs

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